


Say It With Dead Flowers

by burglebezzlement



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Dark, Family, Gen, Ghosts, Haunting, Michael on Earth, Michael pretending to be human, Pre-Canon, Spoilers through 2.04, ToT: Monster Mash, Trick or Treat: Chocolate Box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-20 19:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12440379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Michael’s new neighborhood is perfect. There’s just one problem: he’s missing one of his human souls.





	Say It With Dead Flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thesleepingsatellite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/gifts).



> I couldn’t resist a ghost story for Trick or Treat! Title is from the song Dead Flowers.

The paperwork for his visit to the mortal realm took weeks, but as soon as Michael steps out of the portal, it’s all worth it.

Humans. Humans, crawling through this city, with no idea that he walks among them. The stench of their mortality is invigorating. The thought of them all, burning away their brief mortal lives. 

Michael smiles.

* * *

He travels from the portal to Kensington on something called The Tube. The weather on the surface is delightful, cool, what he understands these humans call “autumn,” but the weather in the underground is hot and the platforms and trains teem with people. Michael takes notes. He’s always thought that humans had ideas demons could learn from. They may not have invented bees with teeth, but they’ve got their own horrors.

Michael uses his human suit’s legs to get himself from Kensington Station to his destination. He lets himself through a metal gate and walks up to the enormous house, a hulking thing of brick and stone.

A woman with long hair in a braid over her shoulder opens the door. Braids — now there’s something Michael hasn’t tried yet with this vessel. He wonders, idly, if you could move a human by its braid, but then reminds himself that he’s here for more refined tortures. He’s not the scared little demon managing the desk at the Twisting department. He’s an Architect now. He’s elevating an art form.

“Ms. Al-Jamil?” He straightens his bow tie. “I’m Michael.”

The woman looks up and down the street before stepping back and letting him in. “I do apologize,” she says, in a distant voice. “The nature of my sister’s untimely demise called attention from the gutter press. If this information is released —”

“I understand.” Michael arranges the human suit’s face into an expression he understands is called sympathy. “It must be difficult. Quite a trying time.”

“It doesn’t even make sense.” Tahani’s sister — Kamilah, this one’s name is Kamilah — leads him into the drawing room. “I thought ghosts tended to stay near where they died. Why isn’t she in Cleveland?”

“There is no such thing as ghosts,” Michael says. He sees the tension around Kamilah’s eyes and softens his voice. “Your sister is what we call a restless spirit. She’s caught between this world and the next.”

There’s a crash from the next room, and Michael jumps. Kamilah just sighs.

“Another priceless vase, no doubt.” She raises her voice. “Mummy and Daddy left me this house! Go smash your own crockery!”

A rush of wind blows through the room, and leaves a faint scent of perfume behind. Michael smiles. If Tahani’s restless spirit still has this much energy, she’s strong. Stronger than he realized, when he reviewed her file.

“Let me,” he says. He puts a gentle hand on Kamilah’s arm. “It’s always more difficult for family.”

She looks at him, expression unreadable, and then removes his hand before stalking into the next room. She’s as damaged as her sister, Michael thinks, as he lets his eyes shift into the spirit realm. 

This house is haunted by more than Tahani Al-Jamil’s restless spirit. Michael sees the spiritual taint left by years of thoughtless cruelty, of human unkindness. Delicious. He could wait for the sister — she’s not theirs yet, but the parents haven’t left her unscarred. If she goes on as she has been, it won’t be long. 

Perhaps by the time Kamilah comes to their realm, his innovations will have reinvented the way humans are tormented in the afterlife.

Tahani’s restless spirit comes into the doorway, and Michael smiles. 

She wears a butter-yellow dress, cascading in ruffles down to a misty hemline. Her torso and head are fully-formed. He can see each gentle wave of her hair, each lash of her eyelashes.

Truly, she is splendid. Such a strong spirit — for a moment, Michael wonders if he should leave her here. The torment she will go through on Earth, watching her sister slowly forget her, watching everyone leave her behind — but no.

He spent three weeks explaining why he needed _this_ human. He can’t go back to Shawn empty-handed.

“Hello, Tahani.” He addresses her spirit, in the corner.

Her eyes go wide. Her sister knows she’s here, but he doubts Kamilah Al-Jamil tried talking to her sister. Just yelling, as in life.

“I’m Michael.” He puts his best trustworthy-human face on. “I’m here to help you move on.”

She’s frozen for a moment, and then her spirit fuzzes out and there’s a rush of wind, knocking over ornaments and shattering a crystal epergne. There’s a smell of rotting flowers, and then her spirit reappears, floating in the opposite corner of the room.

“No? Not interested in that?” Michael sits down on the couch. He arranges the human suit to look relaxed. “It’s in your best interests, Tahani.”

She blurs again, but doesn’t move. 

“Sure, you could stay here.” Michael waves one hand. “Haunt your sister, make her life a torment. And it might be fun, for the first fifty years or so. But what then?” He leans in. “Then _she_ dies, and she gets to the afterlife before you.” 

Tahani’s chest heaves, and she drifts closer to Michael.

“Thought that might give you pause.” Michael shrugs. “But if you come with me now, you get to the afterlife first.”

He’s got her. He can feel it, can see the shift in her spirit’s aura.

“Just think of it, Tahani. A whole new world, and your sister won’t be there for what, another fifty years? You’ll be established. You’ll be the one they all love, the one they cry out for. By the time she shows up, nobody will even remember her name.”

Tahani hesitates, just a moment longer, and then nods. She truly is beautiful, he thinks — a thin skin of flesh over a corrupted soul, concealing the rot from view. 

“I’m so glad,” he says, and reaches a hand out towards her. 

She stays by him, all the way back to the portal, through the Tube and the crowds. Her spirit is so strong, he sees people leaving her space without realizing, without knowing why. 

When they walk by a woman in a KAMILAH t-shirt, there’s a sudden stench of decaying roses, and Michael smiles. His new neighborhood is going to be perfect. 

Tahani Al-Jamil is special.


End file.
